US Defense Dept. tried to block report of child abuse crimes by Afghan soldiers: Washington Post

WASHINGTON,Nov 26 (APP): The Pentagon tried to block an independent assessment about the cases of child abuses committed by the Afghan troops and police, a Washington Post report said on Sunday, quoting an aide to a US Senator who is the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
According to the report, the Pentagon instead insisted on its own report that offered a “far less authoritative review of human rights violations committed by the Afghan troops. That report issued on Nov. 16 by the Defense Department Inspector Generals office (DODIG) did reach the conclusion that the US personnel working with the Afghan army have not been fully trained to report such crimes.
However, a parallel investigation conducted by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is believed to contain much more detail report on these abuses, the WP report said. But, the SIGAR report that was requested by 93 members of the Congress was never released and remained classified, the report said.
Tom Rieser, who is an aide to Senator Leahy Law, the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told the Washington Post that the Pentagon responded with ” resistance” when Congress proposed SIGAR to conduct the probe into the alleged abuses.
According to Rieser, the Pentagon instead presented arguments that SIGAR did not have the required jurisdiction to conduct such particular investigation. SIGAR has since 2005 produced dozens of reports about corruption within the Afghan government and incompetence among Afghan security forces, the WP report said
Under a legislation called the Leahy Law, the US military assistance must be halted to foreign military units that are found to have committed gross human rights violations.
” It’s fair to say there was an effort to discourage the investigation” by SIGAR, Rieser was quoted as saying by the Washington Post report, who also observed that the two agencies agreed to coordinate to produce complementary reports but that Pentagon’s investigators did not fully cooperate.
According to the Washington Post report, it was unclear who in Pentagon resisted SIGAR involvement in conducting the investigation into the alleged abuses. The Washington Post report said that a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense refused to reply to questions about the report, citing the thanksgiving holidays and the “extensive research” that would be required.
Afghan security personnel have been known to recruit young boys as servants, sometimes to use for sex. There is a broader practice in Afghan society to dress some boys as women and have them dance at gatherings, the Washington Post report said.
SIGAR cannot publish its report until cleared by the Defense Department policy officials.